Video Game / Sufferer

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Sufferer: The Adventure of a Solitary Island is a 2013 freeware Retraux 2D Top-Down Action RPG developed by Doujin Soft circle Fox Eye and released for Windows. More specifically, the game was developed solely by Fox, the circle's founder.

Sufferer follows the adventures of Yuna Shinosaki, a girl who is washed ashore on a desert island. While searching for a way off the island, Yuna must fight off hostile wildlife, tangle with a band of dangerous pirates, dive underwater depths (a Fox Eye staple) and meet a cast of talking-bear shopkeepers and innkeepers, all the while growing stronger and finding new items and weapons along the way. If you've ever played the 2D Legend of Zelda games, Hydlide, older Ys titles, or other 2D Action RPGs from The '80s or '90s, you'll know what kind of game to expect here.

Sufferer can be downloaded on the game's official website right here. The game and its website is available in Japanese or English.

Sufferer contains examples of:

• Action Girl: The protagonist Yuna is described on the game's official site as "a girl of action". Though she may sometimes come off as scared or worried in the game's dialogue, she quickly proves herself to be quite capable. She's proficient in sword combat, makes several daring underwater dives, and can even choose to fight enemies with her bare hands.
• All Deserts Have Cacti: You'll know when you've reached the North Desert area by the sudden increase of cactus tiles on the map.
• All There in the Manual: There's no in-game map, but a map is included in the game's download folder.
• Bandit Mook: The Kappa enemies won't deal as much Collision Damage as other enemies, but every time they land a hit, they have a random chance to tear a section of Yuna's swimsuit off, essentially "stealing" your armor. Killing a Kappa won't give you your swimsuit back, but you do have a small chance to receive a swimsuit repair kit as a Random Drop from a defeated Kappa.
• Barbie Doll Anatomy: If Yuna is naked due to suffering from too much Clothing Damage, her nude overworld sprite is not drawn with explicit detail, perhaps because her sprite is too small and low in resolution to show much.
• Beary Friendly: The game's shopkeepers and innkeepers are all talking bears that help Yuna on her quest, even if some of the bears can be a little grumpy at first.
• Body Armor as Hit Points: Yuna's upgraded swimsuit acts as armor and reduces the damage she takes. The swimsuit does not have a durability meter of its own, instead it uses Yuna's HP bar as a durability meter. If Yuna runs out of HP with a fully intact swimsuit, the swimsuit will be torn in half with Yuna's HP bar restored to full. Running out of HP again with a half-swimsuit tears off the remaining half and refills her HP bar once more. As long as the player keeps using Healing Potions before running out of HP, the swimsuit will never actually receive damage.
• Character Level: Yuna can level up by gaining Experience Points. Leveling up gives Yuna greater attack power, more maximum HP and a lengthier Oxygen Meter.
• Chekhov's Boomerang: The Dagger is the first weapon the player can find. It's more useful than fighting with your bare hands, though the dagger is eventually outclassed by later weaponry... until the end of the game, where the Dagger is required to be in your inventory to escape from a deadly trap in the Pirate Stronghold. There's a chance that the player sold off their Dagger hours ago, forcing them to buy a new one to beat the game.
• Clothing Damage: Yuna can upgrade her starting swimsuit to a newer swimsuit that reduces the damage she takes from enemies. However, if she takes too much damage, her swimsuit will be torn in half, with further damage tearing off the remaining half, leaving her naked and extra vulnerable to damage. The player can repair her swimsuit either with a swimsuit repair kit item, or by paying a small fee at an inn.
• Control Room Puzzle: A few sections of the game require the player to toggle switches in a specific order to make progress.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: The player is able to visit the Pirate Stronghold very early into the game, but doing so would be a mistake. Yuna will be captured by pirates, tied to a heavy boulder, thrown underwater and left to die either from drowning or from being eaten by piranhas. The player is able to escape from this situation much later into the game.
• De-Power Zone: Near the end of the game, The almighty Phantom Soul sword is suddenly stripped of all its power when the player gets near the Pirate Stronghold. After an unusually brief storm and earthquake, the Phantom Soul becomes rusted, extremely weak, heavy, loses its ability to fire Sword Beams and becomes an overall worthless weapon. How will Yuna survive the Pirate Stronghold without her newly-acquired weapon? It is revealed later on that the cursed Goddess Statue underwater is depowering the Phantom Soul. Destroying the statue will remove the De-Power Zone around the Pirate Stronghold, restoring the Phantom Soul back to its full power.
• Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: Upon dying, your collected gold, earned Experience Points, Character Level, found items, and the status of pressed switches will all be reverted to the last time you've saved, but as long as you use the game's quick save feature as often as you can, you'll never lose too much progress on death.
• Deserted Island: This game takes place on one, though it's not entirely deserted, as there are enemies, pirates, and talking bears to keep you company.
• Drowning Pit: Being a Fox Eye title, there are plenty of places to drown. One specific well found in the game traps the player into a small box, forcing you to survive underwater for a full minute without drowning. Hopefully you've increased your Oxygen Meter enough to survive, or hopefully you've brought enough Oxygen Meter-refilling "Oxygen Candy" items...
• Experience Points: The player can kill enemies to gain experience points and level up. There is a "Charm" item to increase the experience-earning rate to x1.5 when equipped.
• Face Framed in Shadow: The dialogue portraits for the pirates depict their faces in harsh shadow, their eyes glowing either white or red.
• Face Hugger: The octopus enemies found underwater will cling to Yuna's head and suck away at her Oxygen Meter.
• Fanservice: The main character of this game wears a form-fitting swimsuit that can be torn apart, and the player can choose to let Yuna run around naked for as long as they'd like.
• Field Ability: The Axe can chop down trees on the map, making it useful to reach previously inaccessible areas or to create shortcuts.
• Full-Frontal Assault: Yuna can still fight back even if she's lost her swimsuit, though she will be at a disadvantage, seeing as she takes more damage while naked.
• Funnel-Mouthed Cephalopod: The octopus enemies and octopus boss are depicted with funnel-shaped mouths.
• Giant Flyer:
  • A few boss battles are against giant monstrous birds.
  • Early on in the game, you'll hear rumors of a giant flying eagle from the information house bear Goro. Awakening this giant flying eagle is the key to finishing the game.
• Hand-or-Object Underwear: If Yuna is naked (or if the top half of her swimsuit is ripped), her dialogue portrait is changed to show her covering her chest with an arm and hand. Yuna's pose in the ending scene also changes to depict her state of (un)dress, with her hands and/or leg raised to hide her nudity.
• Healing Potion: Small yellow healing potions or larger red healing potions can found in shops or from Random Drops.
• Immune to Fire: The Competition Swimsuit makes Yuna immune to enemy fireballs. Even if the Competition Swimsuit is completely torn off, Yuna will remain immune to fireballs.
• Interchangeable Antimatter Keys: The keys in this game are consumable items that can unlock any locked door found on the island, but will disappear once used.
• Javelin Thrower: The Harpoon weapon is thrown as an attack and must be picked up from the ground to be used again. While impractical at times, it's useful for fighting certain enemies that like to stay out of the player's sword range. The Harpoon is also required to activate certain switches from a distance.
• Naked Freak-Out:
  • If Yuna loses her swimsuit, none of the other characters in the game seem to notice or mention in the dialogue that she's running around naked, including Yuna herself... except at the end. If the player reaches the ending of the game with Yuna's swimsuit completely (or partially) torn, only then will she finally notice her indecency and freak out.
  • Speaking of the ending, if you're playing Sufferer in the Sufferer Fanbox compilation game, finishing the game while fully (or partially) naked is how you unlock the extra-difficult "The EX Final Escape" mode in the sequel game, Sufferer: The Final Escape, where Yuna will be just as naked as she was at the end of your Sufferer playthrough. The sequel game detects your Sufferer save game to unlock this Old Save Bonus. As a result, the Naked Freak-Out can extend to another game.
• Naked Vulnerability: If Yuna suffers from too much Clothing Damage, she'll end up naked and take x4 extra damage from enemies. In this state, Yuna is more vulnerable and can be killed much faster than if she were wearing a swimsuit. As fun as it is to run around in the nude, it's best to get dressed as soon as possible if you want to survive. Unless you're trying to challenge yourself?
• No-Gear Level: Near the end of the game is a subversion of this. At the Pirate Stronghold, the pirates confiscate Yuna's belongings and throw her into the ocean. If Yuna manages to escape from the ocean, she'll still be missing all of her items (except for her dagger)... Until she checks an opened chest in the Pirate Stronghold containing all her items. The amount of time you spend without your gear is actually very brief.
• No Name Given: The majority of the characters are not named:
  • Among the characters that are named, we have Yuna (protagonist), Saburo (innkeeper bear), Goro (information house bear).
  • Other names can be inferred and are seemingly more generic, such as the "Giant Eagle" or the "Elder Bear" A.K.A. "Elder".
  • All enemies are referred to with generic names, like "Bats" "Octopus" or "Pirates". Some shopkeepers are unnamed.
• Oxygen Meter: It wouldn't be a Fox Eye game without an Oxygen Meter. In this game's underwater sections, Yuna has an Oxygen Meter that starts out quite small, making her unable to swim for very long without drowning. If the player is almost about to run out of oxygen, Yuna will begin to struggle and slow down in the water, making underwater sections quite dangerous. Oxygen Candy items from your inventory can be used to refill your Oxygen Meter if you have them. Gaining Experience Points and leveling up can increase your maximum Oxygen Meter capacity, and finding Mermaid's Scale items increases Oxygen Meter capacity as well. By increasing your maximum Oxygen Meter, Yuna will be able to explore further underwater tunnels and reach areas she wouldn't have been able to access at the beginning of the game.
• Random Drop: Enemies have a small chance to drop an item on death. There is a "Charm" item that can be equipped to increase the chance for enemies to drop items on death.
• Retraux: Released in 2013, this game is designed as a retro throwback to top-down Action RPGs of old with its 16-bit pixelated style and chiptune soundtrack.
• Save Scumming: The game offers a quick save function that allows you to save just about anywhere, mitigating the risk of losing progress on death. However, the player could accidentally save the game in a position where it is impossible to survive, such as saving while underwater with not enough oxygen left to resurface. In this case, you'll have to go back to your last save from an Inn, most likely losing some progress.
• Signature Style: Much like other Fox Eye games, Sufferer features a girl in a swimsuit diving underwater, with the threat of drowning every time you make the dive. Several other Fox Eye titles could be described in a similar way.
• Sprint Shoes: The Wing Shoes allow Yuna to run faster, which can be a huge help to avoid getting overwhelmed by swarms of enemies.
• Sword Beam: The late-game weapon Phantom Soul is capable of shooting projectiles of magic energy.
• Sword of Plot Advancement: The legendary weapon known as the Phantom Soul is required to gain access to the game's final dungeon. The Phantom Soul is very powerful, capable of shooting Sword Beams, and can kill just about any enemy in two hits. When Yuna shows the Elder Bear that she has found (and can wield) the Phantom Soul, the Elder Bear is very impressed, declares Yuna to be The Chosen One and gives her a helpful tip to access and survive the Pirate Stronghold. The Elder Bear's helpful tip is what advances the plot.
• Three-Quarters View: The game's visuals are presented in this view, similar to a 2D Legend of Zelda game or other Action RPG titles. While in the underwater sections, the game will switch to a SideView.
• Timed Mission:
  • Several sections in the game have the player activate a timer via a switch, followed by a mad dash to reach an unlocked area before the timer runs out.
  • The underwater diving sections in this game are essentially Timed Missions with your Oxygen Meter acting as your timer.
• Trial-and-Error Gameplay: Sufferer isn't the easiest game in the world, but the underwater sections can be particularly difficult, especially in the early game. At low levels, Yuna's Oxygen Meter is small and she can't hold her breath for very long while underwater. The player will almost need foreknowledge of what's ahead in the underwater tunnels to avoid wasting too much of your precious breath. Taking a few deaths just to learn the layouts of the underwater tunnels is likely.
• Underwater Boss Battle: There are boss battles against an octopus boss. The boss itself is pretty passive, with the difficulty of this fight mostly coming from not running out of breath or not getting swarmed by the smaller octopus minions.
• Unexpected Shmup Level: The end of the game suddenly becomes a side-scrolling shmup. As Yuna rides a giant eagle back to civilization, the pirates prepare a last-minute attack against her, with a fleet of blimps and fighter jets firing away. Yuna can fire her Sword Beams at the enemies while the giant eagle's newly-hatched eaglets help to provide cover fire for Yuna, acting similarly to Options in a Gradius game.
• Waif-Fu: When the player has no weapon equipped, Yuna will attack with her bare hands. You may need to do this to defeat some of the pirate Mooks found in the game, as the pirates are impervious to all blade-based attacks and only take damage from your fists or from the Harpoon. Using just her fists, Yuna is able to punch these pirates—who are fully-grown adult men—to death. so she's definitely much stronger than she looks. She won't be able to fight off larger groups of pirates without a stronger weapon though.
• Well Entry: There are several wells to dive into, with each one being unusually large and spacious. These wells also act as pathways to different parts of the island.
• You Won't Like How I Taste: When Yuna meets one of the bears that owns an info house, the bear is overcome with a desire to eat Yuna whole.
  Bear: Oh! It's human! And it's a female! It looks delicious!!
  Yuna: No! No! No! Don't eat me! We are women. Let's do be good friends.
  Bear: eh? Can't I eat you? You are looks delicious very much. Still, it's too bad. I have been hungry very much. Ah... I want to eat something. I want to eat delicious meat.